A Distant Past
by kayELRfan
Summary: What happens when Ray finds something out about Debra's past that has him a little worried.
1. The Article

Disclaimer: I don't own ELR nor do I own the characters, this is just a fan fic.

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"A Distant Past"

It was an average day at the Barone house, Ray had just returned home from work and Debra was cleaning up the kitchen from dinner. No one would guess by looking at this happy family what Ray had discovered as he was doing some background work for his next article. With a quick kiss for his wife, Ray heads downstairs to look more closely at this old newspaper story.

As he sits down at his desk to examine the article more closely he can't help but wonder if this child could be the woman he now shares his life with. The picture comes alive in his mind.

We see a small girl, about 4 years old, huddled in a cold, dark, basement room, nothing but a threadbare blanket to comfort her and keep her warm. As the child cries a woman's voice is heard yelling from another room.

"All that girl does is cry, I can't stand to hear it anymore!" she says.

The child's eyes widen with fear as she imagines her father's reply.

"I've made the necessary arrangements, they're coming tomorrow night," he replies.

It is far worse than she imagined, what arrangements had been made, who was coming for her tomorrow night? If this is how she has been treated by her parents, the people who were supposed to love and protect her, what horrors may await her in the outside world?

A tall, eloquently dressed woman sits in a high-backed chair in front of the fire. She turns toward the closed door as she hears her child scream.

"Daddy, no daddy, don't do it! I didn't do anything, I promise! Daddy!" she cries.

As the child's cries are silenced the woman turns back to the book in her hands, her face showing not even the slightest sign of emotion as her husband comes back into the room.

"She's ready." he says as he leans against the door.

The woman looks up at her husband with a worried expression.

"What if they find us? What will we do?" she questions.

As he is about to answer, a knock on the door quickly calls him away. The woman looks down at her hands as she begins to question her husband's contacts. They couldn't afford to be caught.


	2. Rescued

A door opens and we see that the child's basement room is empty, nothing to be seen save for a small wooden crate. Surely this was not what her father meant when he said she was ready; surely he had more of a heart than this?

After a few seconds two men wearing black masks accompany the child's father into the room. He looks at the crate and decides he had better make sure these men knew what they were doing.

"You have the means to dispose of it, don't you?" he asks with a note of skepticism in his voice.

The men turn to him and nod ever so slightly. This is somewhat less than comforting, if there is the slightest gap in their plan, he'd be found. As he realizes this is his only option, he points to the small crate at the opposite end of the room. They men nod as they quickly walk over to the crate, pick it up, and carry it out of the room. The child's father takes one last look at the empty room before leaving and slamming the door behind him.

As the men carry the crate outside we see the house is surrounded by several police cars and all the officers are armed. The two men take the crate over to a waiting ambulance and gently set it down as they take off their masks and nod to an officer standing nearby. Without wasting a second he motions to the rest of the men and they quickly enter the house.

With the greatest of care, the men open the crate and we see the little girl huddled inside. It is painfully obvious the child has been beaten as one of the officers carefully lifts the child's limp body out of the crate and cradles her in his arms as he brings her to the waiting paramedics.

"How could anyone do this to a child?" he says as the ambulance speeds away.


	3. Questions

Ray comes upstairs and stands in the doorway to the basement for a minute watching as Debra sits on the couch with a book on her lap, fast asleep. She looked so happy, so peaceful. He found himself doubting his earlier convictions that this woman had once been locked in a basement room by parents who cared nothing for her. He puts those thoughts from his mind, he just couldn't think about it anymore.

As Ray shuts the basement door Debra wakes up.

"Ray is that you?" Debra asks as she picks up her book.

"Yeah, why?" he replies.

"I just wanted to make sure it wasn't one of the kids up again." She says as she turns around to look at him.

"Oh." Ray says as he moves to sit down beside her on the couch.

Debra looks at him with a quizzical look on her face.

"What's up with you?" she asks.

He looks into her eyes for a second and quickly turns away to turn on the television.

"Nothing." He replies.

Debra rolls her eyes as she goes back to reading her book.

As Ray flips through the channels he wonders if he could be wrong. But there are too many facts that are hard to ignore. But how could he ask her if it was true? What if he was wrong or she didn't want to admit it, where would that get him? He was going to have to find out for him self, for once and for all, if the little girl in the newspaper story was the same person sitting beside him now.

After a couple minutes Ray is still flipping through the cannels. Debra puts down her book as she looks over at him.

"Are you sure you're ok?" she asks.

Ray continues to stare blankly at the television for a couple more seconds.

"Ray!" she says more loudly and punches him in the arm.

Startled, Ray looks away from the television.

"What did you do that for?" he questions her angrily.

"Ray what's wrong with you?" she asks, now with a note of concern in her voice.

"I told you, nothing." He replies, sounding a bit irritated.

"Nothing's wrong? Then why have you been flipping through those channels for five minutes, passing numerous sports shows several times?" she says.

"I'm just tired. Leave me alone." He says as he turns off the television and goes upstairs.

As Debra picked up her book again, she began to wonder what was wrong with Ray. He had been acting weird all evening, turning off the computer as soon as she went downstairs, saying he was working on something and he wanted it to be a surprise. She didn't believe it. He was up to something and she was going to find out what it was.


	4. Safe

As he sits in bed, looking through a golf magazine, Ray's mind wanders back to the images on his computer.

The little girl is asleep in a hospital bed, although she looks comfortable, signs she had been beaten were still clearly visible on her face and arms.

A nurse comes into the room to check on her. As she pulls the covers more closely around her, the little girl wakes up.

"Where am I?" she asks, shielding her eyes from the bright sunlight.

"You're in the hospital, love." The young nurse replies with a smile.

"What happened?" she asks with a frightened look on her face.

"A man brought you here last night, your mommy and daddy had to go away because they weren't treating you right." she tells her.

The little girl tries to get up, but the nurse keeps her in bed.

"Sorry love, but you have to stay in bed a little while longer." she says.

The little girl looks up at her with a desperate look in her eyes.

"But you don't understand. If my mommy and daddy find out that I'm gone it'll be worse! You just have to take me home, you just have to!" she cries.

The nurse sits down on the edge of the bed and holds her close.

The little girl pulls away.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"Well, I'm giving you a hug." she says smiling.

"What's a hug?" the little girl asks with a confused expression.

The nurse looks down at her as tears fill her eyes.

"Don't worry, you're safe now, they will never be able to hurt you again." she says.

After a minute, the child looks up as a doctor enters the room.

"Well little miss, I see you've woken up. How are you feeling this morning?" he asks.

"My head hurts." she replies.

"Yes, I expected it might. You've been through a lot in the past 12 hours. Don't worry though, you'll be feeling much better very soon." he reassures her.

She smiles up at him.

Was she finally free? Could she finally live her life like a normal child, without all the fear, hate, and abuse? For so long she had been locked in that basement room, all alone, with nobody to tell her fears to, nobody to kiss her goodnight. Would she finally discover what it meant to be loved?

The nurse smiles down at the little girl as she tucks her back under the covers and adjusts her pillows.

"What's your name love?" the nurse asks her.

"Debra." She replies.


	5. Forgotten Memories

Ray couldn't stand it anymore. He had to ask Debra if she was the little girl. There were just too many similarities to ignore, although neither Debra or her parents had ever mentioned anything about her being adopted. She may kill him for it, but he couldn't live with himself if it was true and he didn't talk to her about it, or at least try.

A few minutes later Debra comes into the bedroom, takes off her bathrobe, and gets into bed.

"Night Ray." She says as she kisses him and turns out her light before she pulls the sheets over herself and gets comfortable.

Ray continues to sit there, staring blankly at the wall, his magazine across his lap. Should he ask her now or she wait? He couldn't do it tomorrow, he had to work, if he waited he wouldn't be able to talk to her until he got home from work, and then the kids would be there.

"If you're not going to read, could you at least turn out your light?" Debra questions him.

When Ray doesn't respond she turns her light on and sits up to look at him.

"Ok Ray, I've had enough of this. Tell me what's going on with you. You've been acting weird all night." she says with a note of worry in her voice.

Ray turns to look at her. He had to do this.

"Where you adopted?" he questions.

Debra quickly wipes a look of shock off of her face.

"What did you say?" she asks.

"It's a simple question really, were you adopted." he says again.

Debra stutters for a minute.

"What makes you think that?" she asks.

Ray gets up out of bed and goes over to the dresser. He takes out the old, yellowed newspaper clipping and gets back into bed. He holds it in his hands for a minute before handing it to her.

After reading the article Debra looks up at Ray with tears in her eyes.

"Where did you find this?" she asks.

"At the paper, I was doing research for an article when I found it." he tells her.

She looks back down at the article. Ray moves closer to her and puts his hand over hers.

"Deb, is that you?" he asks.


	6. Adoption

Deb?" Ray says.

"I still don't understand how you found this article." She replies through tears.

"Honey it doesn't matter. Is it you?" he says again.

She looks over at him, tears falling town her cheeks, and nods. He takes her into his arms and holds her close.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asks.

"I wanted to forget it. I'm getting better, I didn't think about it at all today, until now." She sobbed.

"But honey, why would you hide this from me? If I had known I may have been able to help you." he tells her.

"I know I should have, but it's so hard to think about. I just didn't want to deal with it anymore." She replies.

As she continues to cry the shot fades to an orphanage. Little Debra is in the yard playing with her friends. After a minute a much younger Warren and Lois come out the back door with an older lady.

"These are all the children living here right now. You've already met most of the children, but you can go and get to know them a little better if you'd like." the lady tells them.

"Oh look at that adorable little girl with the brown hair." Lois exclaims, pointing toward Debra.

"May I suggest another child? You see, Debra is somewhat of a problem child. Her parents abused her until they were taken into custody nearly a month ago, she's had a lot of difficulty fitting in here." she says.

Lois looks over at Warren and they immediately walk over to Debra.

"Hey, somebody's coming over here, they're looking at you." Debra's friend, Jennifer, tells her.

Debra looks up from the sand castle she is building just as Warren and Lois come to her.

"Hi." she says.

"Hello." reply Warren and Lois.

Debra stands up and puts her hand out.

"I'm Debra, and this is my friend Jennifer." she says.

"My, you seem so grown up, how old are you?" asks Lois as she shakes first Debra's hand and then Jennifer's.

"5." she answers with a smile on her face.

Warren turns to Jennifer.

"And how old are you?" he asks.

"8." Jennifer replies.


	7. A Home

Warren and Lois sit down in the lady's office.

"Both Debra and Jennifer seem very sweet." Lois tells her.

"Oh yes, the girls are best friends, they are inseparable." she replies.

"I have to say though, it didn't seem to me as though Debra was any problem at all. She seemed just fine." Warren says.

"Oh most of the time she is, but you have to understand, what she went through is not easily forgotten, if ever." the lady replies.

"Of course." says Lois.

Debra and Jennifer and swinging on the swing set.

"Those people really liked you." Debra tells Jennifer.

"They liked you too." Jennifer replies.

"Not as much as you, nobody ever wants to adopt me. Miss Hillier says I'm a problem child." Debra says with a look of sadness on her face.

"You are not." Jennifer tells her.

"Do you think they'll adopt us?" Debra asks.

"Well one of us, nobody ever wants to adopt two kids right away, that's just too many." she says.

"Yeah." Debra says as she kicks the sand around with her toes.

Warren and Lois are signing papers in the office. They sit back in their chairs as Miss Hillier looks over them.

"Well, congratulations. You've just adopted two little girls." She says as she extends her hand to Warren.

"Thank you." He says as he smiles and shakes her hand.

"Yes, thank you." says Lois.


	8. Running Away

"So Jennifer was adopted too?" Ray asks.

"Yes." Debra replies.

"I still don't understand why you didn't tell anybody, at least that you were adopted." Ray tells her.

"If I had told you, you would have asked questions, and I didn't want to deal with them, I still don't want to deal with them." says Debra.

"But Deb, you can't just keep on pretending nothing happened. You have to deal with it sometime." Ray says.

"No. I don't." Debra tells him as she gets out of bed and walks out of the room.

"Deb! Debra!" Ray calls after her.

When she doesn't acknowledge him, he gets out of bed to follow her.

Ray gets downstairs just in time to see Debra pulling out of the driveway in the van. He goes outside to try and stop her, but she has already driven away.

Ray rushes out to the garage and gets in the car to follow her.

"Why can't she just talk about it?" he asks himself as he speeds off after her.


	9. Lost and Found

Debra pulls into a parking lot and sits with her head against the steering wheel for a second before getting out of the car, slamming the door close, and running off into the darkness.

Ray pulls up just as she is lost from sight and quickly gets out of the car and runs after her. He runs and runs, searching for any sign of where she could be, but he can't find her. He stops running for a minute to listen.

"Ray. Ray. Ray. Ray. Ray." Debra says slowly and quietly.

Ray hurries toward her voice and finds her laying flat on the ground with her head resting on her arms. He kneels down beside her and puts his hand on her back.

"Ray. Ray." she says again.

"I'm here honey." he replies.

"Ray, I'm so stupid. I don't deserve you or the kids" she says as she begins to sob.

"What are you talking about?" he asks.

"I lied to you. You tell me everything and I lied to you. All you ever did was love me, and I didn't love you enough." she cries.

"Deb, you're not making any sense!" he tells her.

"Just leave me alone here to die. I don't want to live with it anymore. I can't. I can't." she yells at him and begins to cry even harder.

As Ray looks down at her we see tears falling down his cheeks. He didn't know what to do to help her. He hated to see her cry. He wanted to make everything perfect for her. He wanted to protect her. But this time, he didn't know how.

He pulls Debra's tired, limp body into his arms, her head resting against his chest, and holds her close.


	10. I Love You

We can tell that it's late the next morning as we watch Debra asleep in bed. As she wakes up and looks around for Ray, she doesn't see him anywhere. She gets out of bed to go look for him, but just then Ray comes in the door. She smiles at him.

"You know, you can stay in bed if you want to." he tells her.

"No, I have to get the kids ready for school." she says.

"Uh, well I think it's a little late for that seeing it's almost noon." Ray says.

"What?" she says as she looks over at the clock.

"I thought you might need to sleep in, so I turned off your alarm when we got home last night." he tells her.

Debra sits down on the storage chest at the end of the bed and Ray sits down next to her. She looks up at him with a look of admiration in her eyes.

"Thanks Ray." she says.

"For what?" he asks.

"For being there." She tells him.

"You know you can talk to me about all this. I know it will be hard, but in the end, it will get easier." he says.

"I know." She says as she smiles up at him.

He hugs her and pulls her close to him.

"I'll always love you," he tells her "No matter what."


End file.
